The present invention relates to adapters for rerouting electrical wires or cables. In particular, the present invention relates to terminal reversing blocks for changing the direction of electrical cables extending out of an electrical disconnect device. As used herein the term “cable” will be used to describe electrical conductors including wires, cables, busbars or other conductors.
High current electrical disconnect devices, such as pull-out switches or circuit breakers for example, are typically connected to thick, heavy electrical cables. The cable connectors of such disconnect devices are commonly referred to as terminal collars. The terminal collars conventionally are located on opposite sides of the housing of the disconnect device. This arrangement arises from the fact that the disconnect device internally has a selectably bridgeable gap in its conductors so there are two naturally-defined, physically separate “sides” of the conductive path through the disconnect. Thus, it is most convenient to physically locate the cable connectors that terminate the two sides of the electrical path on separate sides of the disconnect device. This choice is reinforced by the space requirements of the large cables. It is convenient to route the incoming and outgoing cables on opposite sides of the disconnect device to keep them out of each other's way.
The electrical disconnect device is typically mounted inside an enclosure, such as a junction box or a cabinet. Heavy electrical input cables bring power into the electrical disconnect device and similarly large electrical output cables carry power out of the electrical disconnect device. The diameter of the electrical input and output cables is such that the cables do not bend easily. Consequently, if a linear, single-direction arrangement of the cables is unworkable in a particular situation large spaces are required to bend an electrical input or output cable around to effect a variation in a cable's direction.
As mentioned above, high current electrical disconnect devices have cable retaining structures such as terminal collars which include lugs with clamping screws. For example, the disconnect device can be a pullout fusible switch that is configured to have electrical input cables enter into the bottom of the switch and electrical output cables exit out of the top of the switch, as seen in U.S. Pat. No. 4,536,046 to Erickson, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. Another example of an electrical disconnect device is a load switch or circuit breaker, as seen in U.S. Pat. No. 4,363,063 to Erickson, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
It is often desired to have the electrical input and output cables routed in directions other than the conventional opposite directions. For example, it is sometimes advantageous to have the output cables routed in the same direction as the input cables. That is, the input and output cables are essentially right next to each other. This may be due to limitations on space in the enclosure that contains the electrical disconnect device. The current method to accomplish this is to bend the electrical output cables around in an arc to route the output cables in the same direction as the input cables. Due to the large diameter of high power cables, the radius about which they will bend is large. This means the space required to bend the cables in a reversing arc may be larger than is available. In addition, the extra lengths of cables or cables required to make such an arc increases the cost.
This problem is illustrated in FIG. 21. A standard electrical disconnect device 2 (in this case a load switch or circuit breaker) has input cables 4 attached to the bottom side thereof and output cables 6 extending from the top side of the disconnect device 2. A wide enclosure 8 is needed to bend output cables 6 around to be routed out the same side of the enclosure 8 from which input cables 4 enter the enclosure 8. This Figure is merely illustrative of the problem, as in some situations even the somewhat large radius of curvature shown may not be achievable due to the stiffness of the output cables.
Thus, there remains a need for a way to reroute electrical output cables from an electrical disconnect device in a minimum of space. There also remains a need for a way to adapt such electrical cable routing to industry standard electrical disconnect devices, such as pull out switches or circuit breakers for example.